Secondary News - April 17 2020

It has been a very busy and very productive week in the world of Virtual Learning at BISL. Students have been working hard to either prepare for or sit their Virtual Exams. Years 11-13 have had their first round of Virtual Assessments administered by their teachers. Overall, it has been a successful process and students are receiving very valuable feedback for the next round in a couple of weeks. For all other Year levels, assessments are proceeding as outlined in the Assessment Calendar shared out last week. Good luck to students with the preparation for these exams.

This week Mr Walton shared an articleon the website answering many questions submitted by families via the PTA. This is an excellent source of information for families to refer to. In these uncertain times, having answers and further information is enlightening, so I encourage families to take a moment to read this update.

Lastly, Virtual Interview bookings are well underway! I can see many eager parents taking advantage of this additional provision. Bookings close on Friday 24^thApril, please follow the link: https://bisl.parentseveningsystem.co.uk/and secure your times.

Please stay safe and healthy.

Ms Andronikos

Head of Secondary

Update from the Principal – Friday 17^thApril

Dear Parents,

I would like to continue to update you each week and these will be sent out directly every Friday, as we continue to work together during this challenging time. For links to the previous 3 articles, please click below as they might answer some of your questions and also show the process that we have followed through this transition of learning. Timetables and schedules will continue to be sent out by the Heads of School.

1. Friday 13^thMarch – Frequently Asked Questions

2. Monday 30^thMarch – The Block Break Plan for the 2 Week Evaluation and Key Communication from the School

3. Friday 10^thApril - The Five Improvement Areascreated during the block break after the first two weeks of Online Learning.

4. Friday 17^thApril – The FAQs, current processes and the looking ahead for our school.

Current processes

Online Learning

Our Learning Management System(LMS) is CANVAS. Having one common LMS is important to the school and is integral to our School Development Plan. This will make it easier for students in the long-term having familiarity with one area to use and will make learning online more accessible. This has already started in Primary and some areas of Secondary. In our School Development Plan this was scheduled to be completed in June 2020. This has now been accelerated due to the pandemic and we will schedule a seamless transition over the coming weeks during block 6 to facilitate this. We are delighted to announce plans to introduce CANVAS into Year 1 and 2 for parents to access student work as suggested.

E- Safety at BISL

We have shared our Online Learning Policy and also our E-Safety at BISL page. We also commit to not publishing images of students without permission or videos to assess publicly. If you would like to opt out of sharing images/videos, please contact our admissions team: admissions@britishschool.si.

Looking Ahead

Monitoring Health Advice

We are continuing to monitor the situation daily, checking areas of guidance and how this is changing over our period of time during Online Learning. Health Guidance, Advice and Support from British and Slovenian authorities as well as the World Health Organisation are regularly referenced to make sure that we stay up to speed with any developments.

School Site

The access is currently suspended for students to the site. We have plans in place to make sure that the school is maintained, clean and safe over this time. Regular checks are taken to make sure that we are as ready as can be before students are allowed back on site.

Reopening

We will only reopen the school when we receive official government authorisation. We will consider the guidance when restrictions are lifted, carefully follow the advice from the government, authorities and our School Board. All parents will be communicated at the same time, via email. We all miss the face to face interactions with students and our priority remains the health, safety and wellbeing of our community.

Communication

Please continue to check email as the primary method to contact all parents. A lot of information is sent out and this is the main channel of communication to make sure that all members of the community are informed at the same time. A gentle reminder to check your inbox, spam folders and space on your devices to make sure that you receive all communications. If you change your email address, please contact admissions@britishschool.si.

Further updates

During these difficult times, the staff have been encouraged and uplifted by messages of goodwill and support received from parents, students and the wider community. It is a pleasure to read these and I deeply appreciate all feedback to the staff and students to acknowledge how they have approached this unique situation.

Student Progress, Exams and Teacher Conferences

During this time, students will not be penalised for a lack of progress due to resources, access or working from home. We ask that all students are engaged in online learning, attend classes, complete work to the best of their ability and communicate with teachers if they require any feedback. This applies to parents who have any questions about the teaching, tasks covered in class or content covered. Emailing to the teacher in the first instance is the best way to discuss and reassure during this time. Whilst we continue the transition to CANVAS as a consistent Learning Management System, we encourage all teachers to continue to use their own personal style, creativity and energy in the lessons to give as much variety as possible for the students.

Additionally, Cambridge exam information for Secondary school students has been emailed out by Mr. Batson. jason.batson@britishschool.si For all Primary and Secondary students to receive feedback on their progress in lessons, this can be discussed with parents and teachers at the upcoming Virtual Parent/Teacher (student) Interviews in Week 4. Heads of School have emailed out information regarding how to sign up for these.

After School Activities/Music Lessons

For information/questions about after school activities/music lessons, please contact petra.skofic-damjan@britishschool.si and cc accounts@britishschool.si.

Financial Payments

If any parents have any questions or require advice/support with financial payments for school fees, please contact the school immediately, accounts@britishschool.si

Feedback

Thank you for this feedback and please keep these kind words coming. We will continue to celebrate and share the work produced by students and share this with you through our social media channels, website and emails.

We hope that out of this pandemic, we emerge stronger, valuing the interactions with others and believing in our values to bring about a greater emphasis on care, understanding and compassion.

Thank you for your support during this challenging time and I hope you have a good weekend. I have included a video below with some messages and thanks for you to view during this time.

Stay safe and take care.

Kind regards,

Mr Walton

Principal

Dear Students and Parents,

The PE Department would like to thank you for all the workout photos and videos you have sent to us. Please keep on doing this so we can see the attendance and the progress of the students.

HOUSE COMPETITION:

We have received some amazing weekly scores from different challenges. Here are the weekly high scores:

• Balance challenge: 2min 15 sec
• Wall ball toss: 17 passes
• Marathon: 6000 meters
• Push up: 31 push ups
• Soccer juggling: 24 times
• The plank: 5 minutes

Please keep on posting your scores and help your House win the competition.

PE LIVE SESSION:

Each morning members of the PE Department host a live stream with various different activities depending on the day of the week, these can be found below:

Note that the PE Department is monitoring the student attendance which will have an affect on students Attitude to learning grade.

CANVAS:

We have now permanently moved over to Canvas and will only be accepting submissions through this platform. Please log in to CANVAS if you have not done it yet. If you are not sure of your Canvas login, email Mr Damjan where he will provide you with your login and temporary password.

Mr Damjan

Head of PE

Last week's answer for the Math question of the week is: Fernando, Sebastian and Michael.

Thank you for all submitted answers and congratulations to Aleksander Z (Y8A), Georgi (Y8B), Jernej (Y9), Maks N (Y9) and Asia (Y9) who answered correctly! Well done!

This week’s Maths question is

Alice and Bob send each other secret messages. To put their messages into code they use the following system: first each letter is given a number in order: A = 1, B =2, C = 3, ... Z = 26. Then the letter number is doubled and 9 is added. Bob received a message 13 – 27 – 37 – 33. What did the message say?

Students who solve the question can send their answer to my email by Wednesday next week (22nd April).

Good luck!

Ms Zupanc

Maths Department

Our Year 7 students learnt about the tough life of African Wild Dogs and submitted some great pieces of writing.

Year 8 students continued to work on topics as varied as Descriptive writing, the life of Native American children raised by Missionary schools and wrote about topics such as “can there ever be too much of a good thing?”

Year 9 worked on Shakespeare’s famous Macbeth and year 10 continued practicing Descriptive writing for their forthcoming Assessments.

Mr Eve and Mr Kirwan

Here we would like to share a poem of writing from Nikola in Year 7 about being underwater.

Underwater

Underwater you only see blue,

The cold refreshing water is everywhere surrounding you,

You can't stay for too long,

You know you can't survive,

You’re amused by how this ecosystem strives.

It is all very different,

It is a very different place,

Nothing is the same,

Just like in a video game.

The deeper you go,

The more you think about where you could go,

The vast blue borderless ocean,

Host to many things you didn’t know.

Writing competition.

Just a reminder that we are continuing the English block writing competition through the whole of April

The task is to write a poem, short story, description, or essay on the topic of 'Transformation'. This is a very broad and all-encompassing theme: we are looking for those with original, creative, relevant and/or entertaining interpretations of this theme! You might wish to write a poem about the transformation of the seasons, write an essay about scientific, mathematical, or historical transformations, or write a short story about a character's transformation. The more original, the better!

Short stories, descriptions, and essays should be around 500 words (no more than 550!). There is no word limit on poems, so if you wish to write a one-hundred page epic, please go ahead! The new deadline is April 30th.

We are aware of the range of literary talents our students possess and we would love to be able to display some shining examples of students' writing on our school facebook page to keep us all entertained during these challenging times!

Keep sending your entries by email to your English teacher with the subject heading: 'Writing Contest Entry'.

Best of luck!

Mr Newsham

Head of English

In Slovene we are continuing with our topics.

Y7 did a great job with their descriptions about a Life of a nation.

With Y8 we've analysed an interview of Irena Avbelj looking for what is important when you are preparing an interview.

Y9's are working on ''pojasnjevalno razmerje'' and its connectives.

Y10 were working on the phases of communications.

In the Slovene non-natives group the students were working on projects and presentations.

Well done, everybody!

Ms Kotnik

MFL Coordinator

Year 9 students have been focusing on the topic of holidays and concluded their work by creating a trip diary based on one of their holidays. It has been thrilling to read those diaries. The students made such great work that it was like travelling with them!

Ms Poulet

French teacher

MFL Department

Mr Rogers

Humanities

Dear BISL community,

We need your help to begin the world wide hunt for Teddy bears in Slovenia. The idea is that you place your Teddy bears in your window or balcony, so that people walking by will spot them. This makes for a great adventure for young children. Please then take photos of your Teddy bears in their habitats and of any that you see on walks and share them in our Facebook “We’re going on a bear hunt post” (in comments) - and please feel free to share the initiative by sharing our original Facebook post: https://www.facebook.com/britishschool/posts/3210277485670904

Please take a look at your C4C email for more details, including a slideshow created by Liam (from Year 4).

Happy Hunting - Mrs. Charlesworth & the C4C Team plus our excited teddy bears.